Emily Odermatt
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Emily Odermatt
In the early [1730's], the erection of a court of exchequer and the summary removal of Lewis Morris from the chief justiceship by Gov. William Cosby brought about a powerful revolt by lawyers, merchants, and people of all classes. Morris, James Alexander, and William Smith, 1697-1769 set up Zenger as editor of an anti-administration paper, the New-York Weekly Journal, which was opposed by Bradford's New York Gazette, organ of the government. From the very first number of Zenger's paper, Nov. 5, 1733, an independent and truculent spirit was infused into New York journalism. The major articles, which bear a legalistic stamp, were undoubtedly contributed by his more highly-educated backers..., but as publisher, Zenger was legally responsible. He was an indifferent printer, with a poor knowledge of English, but the articles from his own pen show a courageous and polemical spirit.
In the fall of 1734 steps were taken for his punishment. The Council ordered numbers 7, 47, 48, and 49 of the Journal, containing certain doggerel rhymes, to be burned, but the court of quarter sessions would not suffer the order to be entered and the aldermen forbade the whipper to obey it. It was finally done by a negro slave of the sheriff. A few days later Zenger was arrested; his bail was fixed at £400 for himself and £200 for his sureties, and, since this was more than he could furnish, he was remanded to prison. For several days he was held incommunicado, and in all he was confined for nearly ten months, during which period his paper continued to appear every Monday, the business being managed by his wife, who received her instructions from her husband "through the Hole of the Door of the Prison".
In April term, 1735, he was brought to trial for criminal libel. When his counsel, Smith and Alexander, attacked the validity of the appointment of De Lancey and Philipse as judges, they were promptly disbarred. But when the case came up again in August, Zenger was represented by Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, who, despite the strict construction of the common law of criminal libel which then prevailed, pleaded for the right of the jury to inquire into the truth or falsity of the libel, and when his course was blocked by the court, appealed to the jury, who responded with a verdict of not guilty, to the acclaim of spectators and populace. In his newspaper Zenger printed a complete verbatim account of the trial, the first major victory for the freedom of the press in the American colonies.
Source:
"John Peter Zenger."Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Emily Odermatt
English-born Anne Marbury Hutchinson (1591-1643) was banished from the Massachusetts colony and excommunicated from its church for dissenting from the Puritan orthodoxy. Her "case" was one of several prefiguring the eventual separation of church and state in America.
Hutchinson also continued her father's religious individualism. Adopting Puritanism, she often journeyed to ... hear John Cotton... When the Anglican Church silenced him and he left for the colony of Massachusetts in America, Hutchinson became extremely distraught. She finally persuaded her husband to leave for America, so that she could follow her religious mentor.
The Hutchinson family was well received in Massachusetts... and both husband and wife quickly became church members... [However, when] she was criticized for failing to attend weekly prayer meetings in the homes of parishioners, she responded by holding meetings in her own home. She began by reiterating and explaining the sermons of John Cotton but later added some of her own interpretations, a practice that was to be her undoing.
... While the Puritans believed that salvation was the result of God's grace, ... they also maintained that good works, or living the moral life, were important signs of that salvation and necessary preparation for the realization that one had received God's grace. But grace and works had to be kept in proper balance... to overemphasize grace was to assert a religious individualism that denied the necessity of moral living and by implication rejected clerical leadership, church discipline, and civil authority. While Cotton had maintained his balance in this most difficult of issues, Hutchinson did not, and she finally came to stress grace to the exclusion of works in determining salvation....
As her meetings became more popular, Hutchinson drew some of Boston's most influential citizens to her home. ... they saw in Hutchinson's stress on grace a greater freedom regarding morality and therefore more certainty of their own salvation. But others came in search of a more meaningful and personal relationship with their God. As she attracted followers and defenders, the orthodox Puritans organized to oppose her doctrines and her advocates.
The orthodox Puritans, ... came to demand repudiation of what seemed not only religious error but also potential social chaos. If Hutchinson's views predominated, they reasoned, individual conscience would replace clerical and civil authority as the standard for public conduct.
The Puritan orthodoxy began its assault on the dissenters in the May 1637 election... Following a special election in October, in which the orthodoxy increased its political strength, the government moved against individuals.... The court then moved against Hutchinson... She was accused of sedition and questioned extensively. She defended herself well, however, demonstrating both biblical knowledge and debating skill... but she brashly intervened and, before it was over, had declared herself the recipient of direct revelations from God... This assertion of direct communion with God was regarded as the vilest heresy by all, and it sealed her doom. She was banished as a woman "not fit for [Massachusetts] society."
While Hutchinson's trial was, by modern standards, a gross miscarriage of justice, it was not unjust according to the standards of 17th-century England, where, generally, in sedition cases a formal defense was not permitted and a jury was not used. Yet even by 17th-century standards, a mistrial occurred when the same men sat both as prosecution and judge, for her guilt had been thus "known" by the General Court long before she even presented herself to it...It was a sad end for an important religious figure. Hutchinson's emphasis on grace as the only requirement for salvation was an important step toward the achievement of religious freedom--that is, the ability to follow the dictates of one's own conscience in matters of belief--in America.
Source
"Anne Marbury Hutchinson." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: K1631003221
Emily Odermatt
Promotional literature in England calling for a western planning abounded... Hakluyt's "Discourse on Western Planting" (written in 1584 though not published until his death) gives about every arguement known on behalf of English Western enterprise. Protestantism would be expanded by proselytizing the American natives. Property would be restored through a revival of commerce and the drawing away of surplus population. Poverty in England would be allieviated. Spain would be weakened. By establishing colonies in the New World, England's naval and military power would be improved ... Western planting would serve as a safety valve for distressed elements in the English population..."
Basically, this literature emphasized the benifits of colonization for the motherland (England), her people (the Protestants), and her economy.
Source:
Emily Odermatt
When, in September 1583, Gilbert died as the result of a tempest off the Azores, Raleigh was given a charter to "occupy and enjoy" the new lands. In April 1584, Raleigh's expedition of two ships set sail (without its founder) under the command of Philip Amadas, a Plymouth seaman, and Arthur Barlow, who had been with Raleigh in Ireland. Arriving at the Carolina coast on July 13, the men took possession of the island of Wokoken in the queen's name. Wrote Barlow, "We found the people most gentle, loving, and faithful, void of all guile and treason." Seeking to win Elizabeth's support for more extensive involvements, Raleigh named the colony Virginia in her honor. (She was known as the "Virgin Queen.") He also brought to her attention the primatial treatise of geographer Richard Hakluyt, Discourses concerning Western Discoveries, a work Raleigh had personally commissioned. Though Elizabeth failed to give wholehearted support, she did contribute a ship and some funds towards another expedition. Sent out in April 1585, the party—consisting of ten ships—was headed by Raleigh's cousin Sir Richard Grenville and by Ralph Lane, a professional soldier. After reconnoitering Spain's Caribbean defenses, the expedition entered what is now Albemarle Sound on the coast of North Carolina. Landing first in July at Wokoken, then at Roanoke Island, Grenville returned to England in mid-September, leaving Governor Lane behind with 107 settlers. Indian resistance and tension with the Spaniards caused most settlers to return home in June 1586, when Sir Francis Drake, stopping by after a raid on the Spanish West Indies, offered them passage. The group brought back potatoes and tobacco, which Raleigh popularized in Britain. Grenville, who appeared at the settlement a fortnight after Drake had departed, left 15 men at Roanoke who disappeared without a trace.
Another Raleigh expedition, this one led by cartographer and painter John White, arrived on the island in July 1587 with 100 settlers. White in turn left a group of colonists at Roanoke while sailing home to obtain needed supplies. Delayed in his return until 1590 by the events surrounding the Spanish Armada, he found no survivors, only the word CROATOAN carved on a doorpost. In March 1602, Raleigh dispatched an expedition to search for the survivors of the "lost colony," but the effort was futile. Raleigh had lost a fortune in this abortive effort to found an empire.
"Raleigh, Sir Walter (1554-1618)." DISCovering Biography. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Silver. Thomson Gale. Queens Borough Public Library. 17 Aug. 2007
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